


Seen

by sanctuary_for_all



Series: In A Better World [7]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blacksmithing, Established Relationship, F/M, Feels, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 20:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18106268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctuary_for_all/pseuds/sanctuary_for_all
Summary: Being important matters less than who you're important to.





	Seen

Ever since he could remember, Gendry had wanted to be important.  
  
Not powerful, necessarily, but someone who people respected. Someone who's opinion mattered to people, and who would be missed if he disappeared one day. He'd dreamed up various ways of getting there, over the years, but in his heart that had always been the ultimate goal.  
  
Now, the castle was full of powerful people who would be happy to let him join their ranks. Snow had even _asked_ for his opinion, more than once, since he and Davos were seen as the resident experts on what the smallfolk might actually want and need out of this new government. It was, in every way, the fantasy he'd imagined for so long.  
  
And here he was, in the empty forge at the Red Keep, trying valiantly to pretend there was nothing else in the world.

He'd already shaped the tang, which meant that now his focus was drawing out the blade. He kept his hammer blows as careful and precise as anything he'd ever worked on, even more so than when he'd shaped his own battle hammer. He'd plotted out the exact shape and weight he wanted the final blade to be, seeing it in his mind far more carefully than he'd been able to sketch it out.  
  
After awhile, a dark-haired servant girl stepped into the forge. "Master Waters?" she asked, waiting until he'd stopped hammering. There was just a touch of diffidence in her tone, the same he got from the other servants in the castle, but even that sounded strange to his ears. "The king wishes to speak with you in his office."  
  
He studied her while the next section of the blade was heating, a completely unremarkable servant girl who could pass unnoticed through any castle in Westeros. Then, seeing everything he needed to, he bent back down to his work. "You really are good at that. If I tried to tell anyone who knows you that you're capable of being diffident, they'd laugh me out of the room."  
  
There was nothing but confusion in the girl's voice. "Master Waters?"  
  
He continued hammering out the blade, steady and true. "Seriously. Very impressive."  
  
For a moment, the only sound was Gendry's continued work. When the girl finally spoke again, she sounded just about ready to throttle him. "One of these days you're going to guess wrong, you know. And when you do, I'm going to be the first person to laugh at you."  
  
He didn't bother fighting back his smile as he glanced up at her. "I keep telling you, it's never a guess."  
  
She scowled at him. "There's no _possible_ way you could tell it was me."  
  
His smile widened. "And yet somehow, I always can."  
  
Her only response was an exasperated sigh. After a moment, he heard her move towards a barrel he'd set up to have a good view of whatever he was working on at the time. Since Winterfell, he'd made sure there was something similar no matter what forge he was working in.  
  
When she spoke again, her voice sounded like Arya's. "Has anyone ever told you how infuriating you are?"  
  
He glanced up at her again, wanting to see her real face. She was still in the servant girl's outfit, the face no doubt tucked into a pocket somewhere, but it fit differently now that she was Arya again. Her posture and body language was also different, always accounting for her weapons even when she wasn't wearing them.  
  
Objectively speaking, she probably _wasn't_ the most beautiful woman in Westeros. But he could never quite convince his heart of that fact.  
  
He gave her an amused look as he bent back down to his work. "You know you love it."  
  
Arya sighed, but when she spoke again her voice was warm. "Anything less would bore me." He sensed her lean closer to the forge. "Is that my sword?"  
  
"In its early stages, yes." He finished hammering out the section. "It's still a smallsword, since that's what your fighting style is best suited for, but I've given it extra weight and reach. Once I've finished up the point and it's cool enough to hold, I'll have you test the weight and balance before moving on to the next step."  
  
She watched him work for a long moment, then lifted her head to study his face. "Jon _was_ asking about you," she said quietly. "He couldn't find me to pose the question to, but I heard him speaking to Davos."  
  
Gendry felt his shoulders tighten as he moved the last of the blade into the fire. "Can't be too serious, then. If it was, Davos would have cornered me here and rousted me back upstairs."  
  
"It wasn't, but it could be." He could feel how carefully she was watching him. "Do you not want to do this? Because I've no love for any of this, and if you're in agreement we can leave tonight. We'll have the wedding back in Winterfell, then disappear."  
  
Gendry allowed himself to briefly consider the possibility, then let out a breath and tried to put everything he was feeling into words. "I thought being listened to would change something inside me," he said finally. "But it just feels like someone shoved me onstage without telling me my lines."  
  
Arya's eyes went distant for a second, some memory from the past rising up, then focused on him again wth a surprisingly gentle expression. "Nobility's just a mask, same as the ones I wear. Only difference between you and those born into it is that they started learning how to play the part faster."  
  
"And the fact that they've the brains to catch up." He bent back to the blade, careful not to let his frustration with himself harm the sword he was making. "I can't even read more than a handful of words."  
  
"We can change that." Arya made it seem like the most reasonable thing in the world. "But on the rest of it, my father was an intelligent man. Your father was presumably an intelligent man. Neither of them managed to survive. You did."  
  
"Only because I was a lot less important than they were." He focused on shaping the point. "Besides, survival helps with assassination attempts, not actually being in charge of anything."  
  
"No, that takes patience, care, and thoroughness." Now her voice was wry, a woman about to win her argument. "Just like making a truly excellent sword."  
  
Surprised, he met her eyes. He didn't even know if she was right, but the fact that she seemed so certain left him completely unable to come up with a counterpoint. Being important, it turned out, mattered less than who you were important to. "Has anyone ever told you how infuriating you are?" he asked finally.  
  
Her lips curved. "You know you love it."  
  
He was far more comforted than he had any right to to be. "Anything less would bore me." He stepped back, pulling off his glove to touch the tang. "If you're careful not to get anywhere near the tip, we can test the weight and balance of this."  
  
Arya jumped up, accepting the proffered glove before carefully picking up the blade with it. A tang offered considerably less grip than a proper hilt, but he couldn't detect any awkwardness in her movements as she moved through various practice forms. What he _could_ see was her taking the new blade proportions into account, small shifts in her stance and grip.  
  
He wasn't sure what that verdict was, however, until she returned the unfinished sword to rest position with a deeply satisfied expression. "I am going to kill _so_ many people with that sword."  
  
It was probably a bad sign for his long-term sanity that Gendry felt deeply complimented by that. "Happy to help."  
  
She set the weapon aside with a respect it didn't deserve yet and pulled him down for a quick but thorough kiss. When they broke apart, she grinned at him. "So, are you about ready to rejoin civilization, or do you want me to run interference while you work on my new sword?"  
  
Chest full of more emotion than he could ever give voice to, he bent down to steal another kiss. "I'm at a good stopping point. I just have to clean up."  
  
"I think I can help you stay hidden that long." She stepped back, pulling out the face and slipping it back on. Between one blink and the next, she looked like a different person.  
  
But the pressure inside him was still there, a sweet ache he hoped would never go away. "You look at me like I'm the most real thing in the room."  
  
She stopped, turning around to look at him. "I don't follow."  
  
"It's how I always know it's you." His voice was rough. "No one else in all of Westeros looks at me like that."  
  
Slowly, Arya smiled. It wasn't her face, but it was still so obviously her smile he was amazed no one else could see it. "They'd better not."  
  
There was still a smile on Gendry's face as she slipped out of the forge.

**Author's Note:**

> Come check out my [original fiction,](https://jennifferwardell.wixsite.com/mybooks) my [blog,](http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com) or say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://sanctuaryforalluniverses.tumblr.com)!


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